Writing from the Western Chamber: First-Generation Immigrants and the Primordial Instinct in Xiaolu Guo’s Novels
Issued Date
2026-01-01
Resource Type
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-105033312205
Journal Title
Interdisciplinary Approaches to British Chinese Cultures Identities Belongings Plurality
Start Page
271
End Page
290
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
Interdisciplinary Approaches to British Chinese Cultures Identities Belongings Plurality (2026) , 271-290
Suggested Citation
Stacy I. Writing from the Western Chamber: First-Generation Immigrants and the Primordial Instinct in Xiaolu Guo’s Novels. Interdisciplinary Approaches to British Chinese Cultures Identities Belongings Plurality (2026) , 271-290. 290. doi:10.1007/978-3-032-10053-5_12 Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/123456789/115944
Title
Writing from the Western Chamber: First-Generation Immigrants and the Primordial Instinct in Xiaolu Guo’s Novels
Author(s)
Author's Affiliation
Corresponding Author(s)
Other Contributor(s)
Abstract
Xiaolu Guo’s fiction represents a sustained exploration of cultural encounters between first-generation Chinese immigrants and Britain. Across her writing, a tension can be seen between her protagonists’ gradual separation from, and deconstruction of, a monolithic ‘Chineseness’ and a tendency to essentialise culture in moments of disorientation and uncertainty. In this latter characteristic, Guo’s work pushes against the general trend in academic work of seeking to de-essentialise culture, itself a response to the continued prevalence of negative stereotypes. This chapter discusses this tension in A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (2007), I Am China (2014), and A Lover’s Discourse (2020) and focuses in particular on written language as a site at which this tension emerges and is played out. Ultimately, it argues that the general trajectory in Guo’s novels is to de-essentialise culture, but this occurs alongside a recognition of the seductiveness of what Clifford Geertz called the “primordial instinct” (1963, 109).